


Cast and Bound

by bonnie_wee_swordsman



Series: Imagine Claire and Jamie Prompts [15]
Category: Outlander & Related Fandoms, Outlander (TV), Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-22
Updated: 2018-02-22
Packaged: 2019-03-22 15:50:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13767399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bonnie_wee_swordsman/pseuds/bonnie_wee_swordsman
Summary: A missing moment from Drums of Autumn





	Cast and Bound

**_On Fraser’s Ridge_ **

**_Shortly after Jamie learns about Brianna’s pregnancy_ **

 

“Tell me what’s on your mind, lass.” 

He had found her at the side of the log house, one hand on the rough wall, staring off into the nothing of the forest. It was not a vacant stare, though: it was as alive as she herself, piercing straight through to whatever thoughts she beheld.  

It took her many long moments to look back at him. There were no tears in her eye, only a hardness and fear that chilled him to the core.  

_“What if I can’t love it?”_

He didn’t need to ask. There could be no other meaning, after all.

“I’ll protect it with everything I have,” she said, eyes flashing as she sensed his moment of hesitation and dared him to contradict, “and I’ll defy anyone that tries to shame them for how they came into the world.” 

Jamie inclined his head, relieved to see and hear that fire within her. “Tis precisely what a mother must do for her bairns. It does ye credit,  _a leannan_.” 

At the word ‘mother,’ she had flinched, then swallowed, then looked away. “But what if I can’t  _love_  them?” Her hand floated off her breast, but she couldn’t seem to let herself touch the curve of her belly. “Most days I can imagine the baby is—” 

She suddenly tensed, glanced up sharply at him, relaxed ( _what had she feared she’d revealed?_  he wondered), and looked back downward. “But what if I can’t ever hold them without thinking of....without remembering?” 

He opened his mouth at once, made to step forward, to hold her—but stopped himself short. This was all still so new, this openness and tenderness between them. 

And beyond that, greater in the millionth degree, what in God’s name could  _he_  know of such a burden, of hatred and hurt and responsibility so tightly bound up together? Of being called to carry and care for the child of your very tormenter? Christ, if he had been a woman, and Jack Randall— 

He closed his eyes and bade those ghosts flee away. They did, he was surprised to find, leaving behind only the certainty: no, he could not have borne this trial as well as his daughter. After all, even these decades later, he still could feel the scar on his breast and still more the intensity of the hatred and  _need_  that had compelled the knife. That this brave woman could even pause to  _consider_  love _—_

And yet, the matter stood. There would be a child, living and breathing among them.  _And despite everything..._

Gently, he reached out and touched her cheek. “Bide here for just one moment, aye?” 

She had found a milking stool, Jamie saw, as he walked back to the spot he’d left her. She had her head in her hands, knees wearily propping up her elbows. She looked up as he halted, everything she felt written in her body and her eyes, looking so heartbreakingly young. 

“I canna promise that there willna be moments of fear in these coming months...” He knelt beside her, holding the muslin-wrapped parcel awkwardly in his lap for a moment before laying it in hers. “But the bairn...they  _will_  be loved. I swear to ye.” 

She carefully lifted away the wrapping from the bundle. 

“...Ohh.....Oh,  _Da_......” 

It wasn’t anything grand or fine. The wool was roughspun and the pattern he’d attempted beyond the usual stitch had not gone entirely to plan. There were a few ugly gaps, and the edges weren’t entirely parallel and perpendicular. Still, it was warm and strong, and the dye from the plants Claire had helped him choose made of it a soft, sweet green that reminded him of the garden from whence they’d come. 

“I believe that the moment ye hold your wee one in your arms, Bree, ye willna have any thought for the past. No matter how the wean came to begin, they’ll be  _yours_ above all,aye _?_  They’ll be like you—have your eyes, maybe, or your mother’s hair, ye see?  _Your spirit and your heart._ Holding him, or her,” He couldn’t help but smile, “you’ll feel so much love light upon ye, ye willna ken how you’ll ever be able to contain it—  _I promise ye that.”_

He had seen her chin begin to tremble the moment she realized what she was holding. As he spoke, she had tried to blink back the tears while her hand had moved slowly across the blanket’s weave, resting at last palm up, fingers curved as though cupping a tiny head.  _And_  he saw, when he said this last, the flicker that crossed her eyes; the brief drawing together of the brows in confusion;  the embarrassment as she realized her error, the thought that had been on the tip of her tongue:

_How would you know?’_

He could not immediately speak, for he  _did_  know. He knew a great deal about the love of a child that had not been planned, the circumstances of their birth so very far from those dreamt.  He did know what it was to hold his newly-born bairn in his arms, but he could not tell her that truth. Not yet. 

Still, there was another truth; different, but no less real to him. More so, in fact. 

He slid his fingers beneath hers. “Because it doesna matter through what means ye come to first hold your child, or what might have been lost in the reaching of that moment..... No matter when it occurs.” He held her gaze as tightly as her hand. “There’s nothing else can compare to the joy of it.” 


End file.
